Nick took the stack of vendor packets from me and said, “Let me handle the contracts.”
I looked up. “You sure?”
I screamed into the paperwork.
“Of course I’m sure.” He grinned. “I’m the groom. I should do something besides show up and look handsome. You can just transfer your share of the payment before the wedding.”
So, while I studied color swatches and had in-depth discussions about flowers, he signed contracts.
Whenever we finished signing off on something, he’d show me the invoice and note how much I owed for my share. We were combining our lives. Nothing about that felt strange to me.
If anything, it felt mature. Like a partnership.
He’d show me the invoice and note down how much I owed.
When the venue manager mentioned the final cost, Nick actually whistled.
“Good thing we’re splitting it,” he said. “Otherwise I’d have to start selling organs.”
***
Three months before the wedding, I came home early from work because a client meeting got canceled.
Nick’s car was already in the driveway.
I smiled when I saw it. He was supposed to be working late, and my first thought was that maybe we’d get an unexpected quiet night together.
I walked in quietly, kicking off my heels by the door.
Then I heard voices in the living room.
I came home early.
“Andrea still has no idea,” Lori said.
Nick snorted. “Of course she doesn’t. She trusts us completely.”
I froze. What did I not know about?
Then Lori said, lower this time, “So when are you actually dumping her, baby?”
What?
Nick chuckled. “Once the wedding day comes, we’ll handle it. By then, she’ll have paid for everything, and you can just take her place. It’s perfect.”
“So when are you actually dumping her, baby??”
I wanted to believe it was all a bad dream, but there was no mistake, and no misunderstanding.
Nick and Lori… Talking about me like I was stupid. Like I was a wallet in a white dress.
I backed away quietly, walked out the front door, and got in my car.
I cried first. Then I got angry.
Then I started planning.
If they wanted to humiliate me, I was not going to make it easy.
Then I started planning.
After that night, I made a quiet decision.
Every time Nick asked about the next payment, I told him the transfer had already gone through.
“Sent it this morning,” I would say.
He never checked.
Why would he?
As far as he knew, the wedding was already fully paid for.
I made a quiet decision.
***
Over the next three months, I learned how deep it went.
They were sloppy because they thought I was blind. Or maybe because people get reckless when they believe they’ve already won.
Nick showered with his phone on the sink one night, and messages lit up the screen. The photos and texts Nick and Lori had been exchanging cleared away the last of my doubts — my fiancé was cheating on me with my sister.
But that wasn’t even the worst part.
People get reckless when they believe they’ve already won.
One day, I was at my parents’ house when a message preview from Lori lit up Mom’s iPad: What do we do if Andrea freaks out?
Mom was in the bathroom, and she hadn’t locked her device. I tapped on the message. That’s when I saw the message that changed something in me for good: She won’t. She’s always been too soft to fight back.
I stared at it so long that the words blurred. Then I read the previous message Mom had sent.
Let her pay for the wedding first. Andrea will land on her feet. She always does.
Mom wasn’t just in on it; she’d helped them plan this! I took a screenshot and sent it to myself, then deleted it.
The three of them were in for a big surprise on the wedding day!
My mother was in on it.
***
The church looked beautiful on the wedding day. The flowers, the decorations… it was all perfect.
It brought tears to my eyes knowing that it was all a sham, but I wiped them away. I had to ensure all the plans were in place for my surprise.
Little did I know just how thoroughly Lori and Nick intended to betray me.
I entered the bridal suite in time to get ready for “my wedding.”
But my gown was gone.
All the plans were in place for my surprise.
I stared at the empty hanger. “They didn’t… not my dress. They wouldn’t steal that, too.”
I ran back out in the dress I’d arrived in. Most of the guests were already in their seats. As I drew level with the main entrance to the church, the doors opened wide.
And there they were.
Lori walked through the main doors in my wedding gown. Nick stood beside her with her hand looped through his arm like they were the stars of some cruel little show.
Lori walked through the main doors in my wedding gown.
“Surprise!” Lori said brightly to the room. “We’re getting married instead.”
A few people gasped. A few just stared.
A few looked at me, waiting for the scene. Waiting for me to fall apart.
My mother stood from the front pew and started clapping.
“Well,” she said loudly, “this makes much more sense.”
I turned slowly and took in the room. Two hundred guests stared at us with mixed expressions of confusion and horror.
“We’re getting married instead.”
And then I smiled. “I’m glad you’re all here. Because I have a surprise, too.”
Nick frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I signaled the sound and video technician.
“Play it.”
The lights dimmed, and all the screenshots I’d taken of Lori, Nick, and my mother’s messages to each other discussing the wedding and my sister’s affair with my fiancé played on the white screen at the front.
